Self-Evaluation and Unit 2

Working with Kellie to evaluate one another's work was an eye opening, nerve wracking experience. It was an experience to have someone critiquing my work at the same time that I am reviewing theirs. Beyond that, being able to see things that someone I admire has done with the same project was very informative and an excellent learning experience. By seeing the hard work of a classmate and the differences in our projects I was able to improve my own work and open my mind a bit when approached with assignments.

Working with Ms. Bozorth was a joy. Using what I learned with Melanie and the aspects of Kellie's evaluation which I could improve on, I was not daunted by this project. Ms. Bozorth was open minded and enthusiastic. She has such a positive attitude and a desire to make lessons that are friendly for all of her students. She also gave me a great focus for this unit. She is going to be living in Costa Rica for a year through WorldTeach. We will be doing a project that will have teh students researching cultures of Spanish-speaking countries. They have a difficult unit coming up so this lesson will be a good place for them to relax and use their creativity. She has never collaborated with another teacher or librarian so she was relieved to have help in planning.

Negative reflection

Since I was in Ireland this reflection is behind. I realized this week that I somehow missed the past several Coolest Things I Found post on Facebook. This is something that was significant enough that I feel I have to reflect on it for my own growth. I need to take my future courses day by day and manage my time better. I shouldn't get so caught up in the "big" assignments that I miss out on the benefits and lessons from the smaller assignments. I have started thinking ahead to future projects and I believe that for the second unit I will be doing something different. I am very comfortable with writing units with English literature so for the rest of my projects I am hoping to let literature take a backseat so that I can focus on the things I need the most practice on.

Out of town

I have accomplished no work this week. I have thought about my courses and stressed about what I am unable to do but other than that productivity has been a nil. As lovely as work has been the stress I am feeling about school is making it almost not worth it. I have had limited internet. I have started doubting my original convictions in collaborating with Ms. Bozorth. It is intimidating to think of writing a unit using 8th grade Spanish as the subject when I do not speak Spanish. A media coordinator is going to need to be able to work with all teachers at a school, not just the ones who teach familiar subjects.

Collaboration buddy

Working with my classmate Melanie is a real treat. She is such a strong person, I have looked to her as a mentor during this class. She has developed an impressive time management philosophy that allow her to balance all of her responsibilities with her family, her full time job, as well as course work. She taught me how important it is to discuss expectations at the start of any collaboration. We struggled with the expectations of this project because we both are much better at following guidelines than creating them ourselves. We stumbled a good bit at the start of the assignment. We had trouble with the open ended nature of the assignment. After collaborating with the other members of the class we shed our self doubt and decided to take the assignment step-by-step. We made it through and I feel really positive with our collaboration, though I know future collaborations away from the class will be quite different. I hope I can model some of what I have learned to the school-based educator.

Teacher Interview

Having gone to Lake Norman High School, I am familiar with many of the teachers at the school. For this assignment I wanted to interview a teacher that I knew would have an interesting teaching philosophy. I have been in many different classrooms because of submitting and student teaching. One class I had the pleasure of substituting for is an English class, belonging to a first year teacher, Mr. Walton. He had a guitar in the corner and video game posters mixed among Shakespeare quotes. The sub in me cringed assuming this teacher had no classroom management plan and that this was going to be a long week. How wrong I had been. His classes were respectful and self-motivated. The students work hard. I was eager to meet this teacher. So when I chose him for my interview, I was looking forward to seeing him in action. He has the philosophy that his students are responsible for their progress and grades. He will not repairman them for not paying attention but mark down for his own records so if the student scores poorly the will know why. He has never given a worksheet to his students and his lessons are individualized and relate to the students lives. We need more teachers like this one. His students respect him and he actively collaborates with other teachers and isn't afraid to ask help.

Planning successfully with a partner

Collaboration with others is one of the most important parts of being a media specialist. Working with partners during our class projects has been practice collaborating with peers. On a small scale the importance of keeping logs and records of communication with teachers is important. It helps to keep record of which teachers have used the media specialist as a resource so that the media specialist can approach those who haven't before. It was very interesting to see how Sue Kimmel divided cooperative planning into different segments. The categories: Drifting, orienting, coordinating, making connections, and making sense are ways to walk through coordinating with a teacher. Using the data Kimmel collected on how teachers plan, a media coordinator can react effectively to fill in the needs of the primary instructor.

I liked the way Patricia Montiel-Overal understood that the roles in schools have been changing and making collaborating even more important. She believes that the two key elements of collaboration are coordination and cooperation. From my experience these are necessary in effective collaboration. When I have collaborated with partners in the past we are only effective and efficient when we are able to communicate openly about what we are expecting from one another and the outcome of the assignment.

Stereotypes and differentiation

When I would learn about differentiation in the classroom, it seemed like a daunting yet necessary task. A classroom without differentiation is a class that is ignoring the individual needs of the students. As daunting as the task of differentiating for one class may be, differentiating an entire library to suit the needs of an entire campus of students is much more intimidating. It will also be that much more rewarding. By assisting teachers in adding differentiation to their lessons, I will be making sure that students are given resources to help each of them learn and succeed individually. The quick check for differentiation in the article "Everyone Wins", was extremely helpful and it will be useful in making sure that students are receiving the appropriate assistance in every aspect of their learning.  Adding in another challenge is making sure that we, as librarians, honor our duty to provide resources and literature for all of our patrons equally. It is also important that we show children that they are equal to one another and the stories we provide should reflect that. In the article "Questioning My Collection" I was amazed to see how somethings can be put into a book that can completely mar a student's self-esteem and self image.

Where teaching and media specialists meet...

It is interesting for me too look at a media specialist's role as a teacher. I have always looked at myself as a teacher and now that have devoted myself into becoming a media specialist I am still going to be able to label myself as a teacher. It is going to be an adjustment going from being a primary teacher to being a collaborator. The thing I am most looking forward to is being able to work with a variety of classes on a regular basis. In Buffy Hamilton's article, it was informative to read about the importance of collaboration between the librarian and the teacher. The thing that stuck out the most to me was the idea of collaborative assessment. From experience now with recent assignments, I realized how beneficial it is to not only assess your progress but have a peer assess you as well.

Collaboration, Assessment and Pathfinders... Oh my!

Many things have happened in the past week that have opened my eyes more to the complexities of the responsibilities of a media specialist. During my service learning, I saw how "Media Specialist" is translated to filling what ever technology or media base need arises in the school. I enjoyed one of the points the article "Inquiry-based learning is Equal Parts Process and Partnering". Many teachers say that they do not have time to meet and coordinate with the Media specialist when in all reality a Media Specialist makes a teacher's job easier. The purpose of the Media Specialist is to use all of their available resources to work within the teacher's time frame. One thing that I read in the same article is about Path-finders. This is one resources I have noticed teachers often using when they are in the media lab or doing internet based research products! It is very convenient to have a list of sites and resources for the students to use. This also a way for the Media Specialist to be in two places at once. The article on assessment was a good refresher. From my experience Assessment is the big bad terrible bane to the education system. It was refreshing to have an article simply say "Hey Assessment is here to stay, so make the best of it". Under the different circles surrounding Learning to Technology, one says "Deep Understanding". This is one thing in this article that I have trouble putting a lot of stock in. The use of technology as a resources is extremely beneficial for providing information but deeper understanding needs to be from hands on learning, not from an instant gratification resource.

Reflection 1

The Beginning

 I have entered this Library Sciences program to be able to obtain a position in a library, to work with children and help spread my love of novels and literature to students. Through my readings, I have discovered that this is a very complex responsibility. One that I am even more passionate about than before I began researching. I have met with Media Specialists in my local high school and elementary school, and they have agreed to allow me to work with them. For my projects I have chosen to work with the high school, but I am maintaining a relationship with the elementary school and volunteering so that I can be more prepared and fully grasp the journey ahead of me. 

I was shocked by the depth of the jobs expected of a Media Specialist. They are responsible for more than just the books in the library but also the success of the faculty in the school! They are in charge of professional development and encouraging the appropriate use of technology in the classroom. Focusing in on the words IN CHARGE- I have always been a peace maker and a go with the flow kind of person. Leading teachers and colleagues in discussions and motions to better the community is intimidating to me. It took my final year in my undergrad to feel comfortable enough to speak out loud in class. I have a hard time speaking in front of others. In my experience attending a professional development meeting, the teachers do not appreciate what they are learning or discussing. While I know it is impossible to please everyone, my hope is that when it is my job to host a PD meeting I can be engaging enough to actually have the teachers desire to come to the meetings. 

A librarian has to be an expert on everything, they need to have the ability to access any type of information. It seems to me that a librarian's job is to make the teachers' jobs easier, the student's jobs more enjoyable, and the curriculum up to date! You have to be able to stay up to date with technology, classroom management techniques, and curriculum guidelines. (Empowering Learners)
When talking to my Service Learning teacher, who is a high school media specialist, I discovered that because of the increasing reliance on technology, books have fallen to the way side. To me this is understandable because it is much more convenient to access information using the internet than to research it in a book. In fact, I do not know that anyone would choose to research something in a text encyclopedia rather than an online resource. We have become a society who thrives on instant gratification. When a question pops into our minds, it takes less than a minute to have our curiosity satisfied thanks to search engines.

While the job of a media specialist seems overwhelming, it was comforting to remember that the more support you have from faculty and administration the more successful my job will be. This again reminds me that my leadership skills are going to have to increase tenfold if I am to do my job well and have the support of my collegues. And if I have a sufficient budget. The school I am working with for my service learning is a school that has no assigned budget. The need is specialist is not even able to push for more funding. I wonder how the Impact would work when it is not supported financially even though the physical resources are availible.

I wonder how the media specialist t my school is able to handle both being a technology facilitator and a media coordinator when the admeniatration is not involved. I am mostanxious to meet wih my service learning teacher to learn how she handles professional development (how she assesses, plans and ensures the success of the library. 

To be a data warehouse, or to not be a data warehouse... that is the question

Joking aside, that isn't even a question. It is not the job of the Media Specialist to have every book read and memorized along with every fact and resource available to mankind. It is important to know your library, to know the faculty/staff in the school, and to know the needs of the environment in which you are serving. I say serving because Hamilton explained that we are resources to be used to a teacher's advantage in their classroom. For this relationship to be formed and beneficial to both parties it is important for there to be open communication and flexible ideas. The advantage to cooperative learning is that it can turn an idea into an organic thing that grows upon itself as it is bounced back and forth between the teacher and the media specialist. Outside of being a resource for the teacher, we are to encourage students' learning. I feel like those are words I constantly hear thrown about until they have no real meaning. But to encourage students' learning we need to be fully attentive to the needs of the students and understanding how they process information.